A couple of weeks ago, I did a gig at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London. I know - get me. There were three of us on the bill, Jo Brand, Stella Duffy and myself, "in conversation" about our latest novels. The audience - 85 per cent women of a certain age - laughed with empathy at our anecdotes, listened attentively to our readings and politely raised their hands to ask questions at the end. It was a blur of cashmere cardigans, intelligent faces and clean hair.
God it was great. Afterwards we had lashings of white wine, and I, for one, felt really clever and grown up, signing copies of my book and really getting off on my "local author" status. That there were three of us in the same boat is probably what made the evening unusual. Living within a mile of each other, Stella, Jo and yours truly have all come round to writing fiction via the stand-up scene. Stella is an improv veteran, Jo needs no introduction, and I have hacked around the country as a stand-up for more decades than are dignified.
I doubt that any of us would have imagined ten years ago that we would one day find ourselves looking out at an audience consisting almost entirely of middle-class, heavily mortgaged, sober local citizens with barely a tattoo between them.
Times change. In the past, I shivered in pub kitchens, putting my face on next to the deep-fat fryer, chain-smoking as I prepared to sell my 20 minutes of comedy soul to whoever had wandered in from the street. The pub-circuit comedy crowd obey no rules. Unlike a West End theatre audience, they don't just politely fall asleep if they get bored; they tell you to your face and throw things. The worst shows I have ever done were student union gigs in the 1980s. Being booed off was often a merciful relief. Much more soul-destroying were the nights when they didn't even bother to turn off the jukebox, when they continued playing pool, when they just ignored the girl in the corner who kept screaming hopelessly into a broken microphone. My flesh still creeps at the memory.
I don't want to go back. I still adore stand-up, but I don't want to do it at grass-roots level. I'm too old to want to impress people I wouldn't get into a lift with. I've got soft in my old age: I want a fruit bowl in my dressing room and a clean towel; I like a backstage Tannoy and proper theatre calls. Give me an arts centre, give me a literary festival, give me an audience that doesn't behave as if it's got some undiagnosed syndrome. I don't mind the slogging up and down the motorway - not since they've introduced Marks & Spencer food outlets at some service stations (I tell you, eating sushi in a transit van has a certain cachet) - but I just don't want to be shouted at by morons any more.
Jo, Stella and I left the Dulwich Pic- ture Gallery at 9.30pm (bliss - home in time for Desperate Housewives). The publishers had laid on cabs, even though I could easily have caught a bus. I felt flushed with success, like a proper lady novelist/consummate performer/raconteur - I felt GOOD.
There was a black cab by the gates. I jumped in, and the driver flinched as if I was attempting a carjacking. "Sorry, Missus, wrong cab - I'm booked for a Johnny O'Clare." "I'm Jenny Eclair," I explained, but it was pretty obvious he'd never heard of me. I deflated like a punctured football.
It doesn't matter how far you go, or how well you've nearly done; there will always be a bit of you that is stuck screaming into a broken microphone.
Jenny Eclair's latest novel, Having a Lovely Time, is published by Little, Brown
